1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an improved data processing system and more specifically to a method and apparatus for processing data. Still more particularly, the present disclosure relates to a computer implemented method, apparatus, and computer usable program code for managing access requests for a disk drive.
2. Description of the Related Art
Optimizing access to devices, such as, for example, disk drives in a data processing system may increase the performance of the data processing system. Advances have been made in the optimization execution of access requests to a disk drive. These access requests include, for example, read requests and write requests. A device driver or controller for a disk drive may often process numerous access requests at any given point in time. These access requests may specify a set of physical disk blocks in a disk drive. A set as used herein refers to one or more items. For example, a set of disk blocks refers to one or more disk blocks. The seek time, settle time, and rotational latency present in executing an access request may make processing a request inefficient at times.
Different techniques are currently present for processing these access requests. For example, one technique may involve accessing disk blocks for an access request in the order in which the request specifies disk blocks. Another methodology may include processing access requests in the order in which the access requests were received from the operating system. These types of techniques for processing access requests may be inefficient. Therefore, it would be advantageous to have an improved computer implemented method, apparatus, and computer usable program code for processing access requests for a disk drive.